It was the candidate’s third stop for the day: Axim, Tarkwa, and now Sekondi-Takoradi. There had been the inevitable delays at the two prior rallies and Evans-Aidoo and the entourage were late. Even though they had started the parade before dusk, darkness had descended quickly around 6 p.m., as it always does at the equator. But that was no impediment. The campaign had a vehicle with a generator and bright lights that traveled at the head of the procession, sharply spotlighting the popular man who had set the youth on fire with his promises. He had pledged first, to sack every single corrupt official in the Bannerman government; second, to shunt away some of Ghana’s petroleum and natural gas revenue into programs that would benefit ordinary men and women, particularly the largely unemployed youth. It was a classic taking from the rich to give to the poor. These young people, so hungry for a livelihood, truly loved Evans-Aidoo, and they had waited for him for hours in the ferocious sun. Now he was here, and he didn’t disappoint as he put on this dazzling show. He was larger than life physically and symbolically.

The cacophony from the cheering crowds, the band, and the noisy mobile generator prevented anyone from hearing a distinct gunshot. Evans-Aidoo’s body dropped so suddenly from view that few people grasped that anything was wrong.

But inside the Benz, terror unfolded. Evans-Aidoo had collapsed like a sack of yams into the lap of his campaign manager, who let out a high-pitched scream as the minister’s blood sprayed her and the tan leather seats. The bodyguard in the front scrambled into the back seat to shield his boss. The chauffeur craned to look behind. “What happened? What happened?”

“Drive forward!” the bodyguard shouted. “Drive!”

The Benz shot forward and crossed the street’s center line. Tires squealing, it skirted the generator vehicle and kept going. People at the roadside were screaming, but it was not jubilation anymore. It was panic. Something bad had happened, but no one knew exactly what.

The manager in the Benz was shrieking, her head turned away from the sight of Evans-Aidoo limp and half wedged behind the passenger seat. The bodyguard tried to lift his boss’s head, but it was slick with blood and brain matter and it slipped from his hands.

Hyperventilating and gripping the steering wheel like death itself, the chauffeur said, “Where? Where?”

“Takoradi Hospital,” the bodyguard stammered. He was close to weeping. “Hurry!”

One day earlier

TWO

January 3, Accra, Ghana

With darkened windows, sirens going, and small flags of Ghana flapping on their hoods, three shiny, black SUVs raced along Independence Avenue. Ordinary mortals on the street knew the drill and pulled their vehicles to the side to give the VIP free passage.

In this case, the dignitary taking precedence over the plebes of Accra was the Inspector General of Police, James Akrofi, who was in the back seat of the middle vehicle. He didn’t look up from his work as he made last-minute changes to the draft of his Ghana Police Service Report to the Blue-Ribbon Commission on the Eradication of Corruption in Ghana. It was a mouthful, but before President J. K. Bannerman had been elected to power almost four years ago by an overwhelming majority of Ghanaian voters, he had campaigned consistently on that one bedeviling issue: corruption. Tapping into a lurking sense among Ghana’s citizens that the nation was slipping backward like a truck mired in muck, Bannerman had persuaded Ghanaians that corruption was standing in the way of every individual’s development and prosperity. “Ghana fails when corruption prevails,” his albeit clumsy slogan, had caught on. Bannerman had promised the nation a new era of The Clean and Enlightened Society. The people reached out to him with the fervor of a parched man in the Sahara yearning for an oasis.